Often, system administrators desire to connect a central computer server to one or more remote client machines over secure connections. Typical secure connections between the central computer server and a remote client machine include systems in which the central computer server encrypts communications destined for the remote client machine using an encryption key, and the remote client machine decrypts the encrypted communications using the encryption key. Similarly, the remote client machine encrypts communications destined for the central computer server using an encryption key, and the central computer server decrypts the encrypted communications using the encryption key. In some systems, various keys are used for different purposes.
In order to set up the secure connection between the central computer server and a remote client machine, system administrators will typically run the central computer server to generate an encryption key to be used by the remote client machine, and then transfer the encryption key to the remote client machine by e-mail, by physical disk transfer, or across a pre-existing secure channel. For example, the system administrator may connect a diskette or a flash drive to the central computer server, transfer the generated encryption key from the central computer server to the diskette or flash drive, move the diskette or flash drive to the location of the remote client machine, connect the diskette or flash drive to the remote client machine, and finally transfer the generated encryption key from the diskette or flash drive to the remote client machine.